


it walks with my legs to fall at your feet

by Nakimochiku



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:46:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4223946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I think I'm going insane and you're the only one that can help.</p><p>Or, Alexandria isn't the haven Daryl needs; Rick is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it walks with my legs to fall at your feet

He doesn’t mean to stand outside Rick’s door, listening to the sound of breathing, shifting sheets over bare legs, crinkling pillows. He doesn’t mean to ease the door open a crack, breathe in Rick’s sleep warm scent as it permeates the air. But since he’s doing it, regardless of his intentions, he means to close the door, creep away, find some hole to crawl into for the night, maybe take a long hot shower so he can stop feeling so dirty, right to his bone marrow in places he can’t reach.

Rick snaps awake, some animal instinct warning him of a potential predator. He looks to the door, blinks sleep away from bleary eyes and murmurs, “Daryl?” voice groggy and rough and drawling with sleep.

“Yeah.” Daryl whispers. He chews his lip for a second, watching Rick shift, pushing himself up to look at him, debates opening the door wider or just closing it and walking away. “Sorry. Go back t’ sleep.” He moves to close the door, fingers tight around the doorknob. He should close the door.

“No wait. You came for a reason.” Rick tries to visibly wake himself, scrubbing a hand down over his face, rough with day old stubble. He looks so clean, so normal, and Daryl feels ashamed showing his dirt streaked face, to come anywhere close to him with his gritty fingers. “C’mere, s’alright. Was having a weird dream anyway.”

“Can wait ‘til morning.” Daryl assures, and closes the door anyway, ignores Rick’s sharp little call of his name.  He doesn’t mean to stand in the hallway breathing, but since he does, he curses himself, and firmly clamps down on the traitorous little wish that Rick would get out of bed, chase after him, chase him into the night and far away from here.

*

“Well, Morning Officer.” Carol chirps. She hands Rick a cup of coffee, smiles at him warmly. Daryl glances at Rick through the corner of his eyes, and gazes back into the depths of his own mug.

“Morning.” Rick chirps right back. He leans against the island beside Daryl, sipping his coffee for a few moments of quiet while Carol flips pancakes on the stove. “Morning, Daryl.” He says quietly, turning to look at him. He hasn’t shaved this morning, so that his jaw is dark and rough. Daryl’s always preferred his beard, always thought it made Rick look wilder, dangerous, predatory.

“Morning.” Daryl grunts, taking a large gulp of his coffee. Rick smiles at him, blue eyes crinkled in mild amusement.

“What’d you wanna talk to me about last night, ‘fore I scared you away?” he leans closer so their arms are flush, and Daryl’s bare skin can feel the solidity of Rick’s arm beneath his wind breaker; his crisp uniform is a reminder that Daryl simply shouldn’t.

Whatever it is he longs to do, he simply shouldn’t.

“Weren’t nothing.” Daryl assures, and drains the last of his coffee. Rick gives a shallow shrug and tips his head indulgently, as though to say, alright, I won’t push it, but feel free to say something whenever you’d like. Daryl nods, because maybe he won’t say anything, but he’s glad to know Rick would listen.

Either way, what would he say? I feel like I’ve been chained up in a cage too small so that I can’t even pace the bars, I can’t even breathe. I feel like something is swelling up inside me, noise in my head, so I can’t even hear. I like to sit near you and watch you sleep because I feel at ease, I want you to make it stop, I need you to hold me together because I am one step from flying completely apart. He doesn’t have the words to explain succinctly just what he means.

Rick claps him on the back, sets his empty coffee cup in the sink, and joins Michonne on the porch. Daryl wants to crawl someplace warm and hold himself steady. Instead, he chews the ragged skin of his fingers and grunts, “going out,” To carol.

*

He paces the house at night, listening to the creaking of the wood settling in for the night, the shifts of his family coming in to roost like birds. He climbs stairs and roams empty hallways, circles around the living room, glancing at the fire place where Michonne has hung her katana, the kitchen island where Carol has left a plate of covered cookies for people to nibble on as midnight snacks. When he gets too restless inside, he paces the porch and smokes, savours each deep lungful.

He doesn’t expect Rick to follow him outside, wearing just a t shirt and pajama bottoms, giving him the sheepish look of a boy caught where he shouldn’t be. “Heard you on the landing. Came to see what’s up.”

Daryl shrugs because he has no answer. The walls of this cute little neighbourhood cage him, trap him, close in on him, and he just needs two seconds where there are no eyes on him, two seconds to breathe fresh air.

“I know this is an adjustment.” Daryl snorts because that’s an understatement, takes another drag of his cigarette to hide the shaking of his fingers. “You know I’m here, don’t you?” Rick takes a step closer so he can duck his head and look into Daryl’s eyes. His blue eyes glow in the darkness with a fluorescence of their own. “You know I wouldn’t leave you to suffer by yourself, don’t you?”

Daryl nods, looks out over the top of the walls to the trees. He can’t tell if Rick is satisfied with his answer, but he leans back to regard him and nods to himself. “Right, so either you’re coming in with me, now, or we can wait a bit before you come inside. But I’m not leaving you alone.” He wants to tell Rick to leave him alone, that he just needs a bit of time, but Rick’s as stubborn as a mule. A cool breeze blows by, raising goose bumps up Rick’s arms and across his collar bone.

“it’s getting cold.” He say, climbing down off the porch railing. “Let’s head in.” Rick smiles and nods, and gestures towards the door.

“After you.”

*

It’s not like it should feel weird sleeping in close proximity to Rick. In the past few weeks they have crammed fourteen people in sheds and vans and blown through convenience stores; he’s been thigh to thigh with Rick, Back to back, face to face. He knows some parts of Rick, the flex of his hands and the tendons lining his arms, better than he knows himself. But that was outside the walls, before Rick made himself into something again, and Daryl became nothing again. That was when he mattered to Rick.

So it does feel weird shucking off his vest, watching Rick make himself comfortable in a rumpled nest of sheets, and wait expectantly. “Bed’s too big and soft by myself.” Rick explains. “Carl wants to be a grown up and sleep by himself, but it just makes me restless, and everyone else is all paired up already.”

“Sure.” Daryl says though Rick hasn’t directly asked a question. He thinks he can do this, can let Rick fall asleep and then sneak away to wander the cute little neighbourhood that drives all the oxygen from his lungs. He kicks off his boots and slides onto the bed, warm with Rick’s body heat.

Words threaten to bubble up his throat like water in his lungs. I think I’m going crazy, and you’re the only one can help. I think I’m going crazy and you’re the cause. Please tell me that everything’s as it used to be, tell me that I still matter to you, because I’m slipping and I need something to hold onto before I spin off into some void I’ll never crawl out of.  Daryl just curls in on himself and tries to relax with Rick breathing soft and easy beside him.

“Are you okay?” Rick breathes. His tone colours the words so what he means is, “I know something’s wrong, but you’re not talking, and I need to know how I can help before you break.” Too late, Daryl wants to say, I’m already broken and if you keep pushing you’ll either heal me or break me further, I don’t know which, and either option terrifies me.

He says, “Mmhm. Gotta be.”

“That’s not an answer.” Rick sighs. He presses his forearm between Daryl’s shoulder blades, and it should mean solidarity but it just feels like a band around his lungs, restricting them. “And you don’t gotta be okay. I wouldn’t force you –“

“M’alright, Rick.”

Rick huffs through his nose. He doesn’t believe him and Daryl doesn’t care.

*

“I can’t breathe.” Daryl says. Rick looks up in vague panic and moves quickly to his side. “I mean this place, I can’t breathe, it’s—“ too innocent, too oblivious, too fucking good to be true.

“I know.” Rick says, hands warm on his shoulders. And it’s a comfort that he doesn’t try to tell him to suck it up, that it’s all in his head.

“I can’t breathe here, I can’t breathe and I need—“ you, and you’re right beside me, but I really shouldn’t. Something keeps pulling me here to you even though I can’t have you, not really, not the way I want.  Rick’s eyes glimmer like he’s saying every word out loud, and maybe he is, he can’t tell. “Can I just—“ stay here, listen to you breathe and smell you and wrap myself up in your very existence so I can forget my own.

“Of course.” Rick says, without him saying a word. “You’re alright here with me.” He assures sweetly, hand just resting on his belly, hot and comfortable, so that Daryl aches right to his dirty bone marrow. “I’ve got you, you’re alright.”

Yes, Daryl thinks, breathing shallowly, and that’s the problem.


End file.
